This post includes an excerpt from chapter 14, which gives comprehensive information on how to acknowledge, recognize, and respond to the fourteenth step in the journey through dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease: the end of life and death.

As we near the end of the journey we’ve shared with our love ones, this is the last step we will take with them. This chapter talks comprehensively about how to do that with love, with gentleness, and with kindness.

“This step is the next to the last step in the journey that our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease take. It can be a lengthy step of months or a short step of weeks or a shorter step of just a few days. Regardless of the amount of time, though, this step is harder, I believe, on us than it is on our loved ones.

This step is a two-process step: the body begins shutting down in the first process and active dying occurs in the second process.

One of the first signs that the body is beginning to shut down that we’ll see with our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease is that they will start sleeping a lot more.

This usually begins a few months before death occurs. Often, this is a pattern of an hour or two of wakefulness followed by naps and dozing on and off during the day, with fatigue setting in early in the evening and a full night’s sleep ensuing.

In short, our loved ones will be asleep more than they are awake.

Another sign may be a decreased desire for food and drink. It is important to not to try to force food and liquids on our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease if they don’t want them. As the body starts its elaborate shutdown process, there simply isn’t a need for much nourishment. Additionally, because our loved ones are not very active, they don’t burn a lot of calories nor do they need as much sustenance.

However, what is also likely to happen is that our loved ones will want or need nourishment at odd times of the day (not necessarily a normal meal time), and when they do, try to keep food and drinks healthy and light (easy to digest).

Often, during this time of shutting down, our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease will, when they are awake, both sort through their lives and work to make peace with anything in their pasts that they believe is left unsettled.“